State of mind: New downtown Cape business will feature only Missouri-made products

For Gary and Mary Johnson, their first search for Missouri-made products began when they went gift shopping for a friend who was visiting from China. They wanted to give him something that would be a friendly reminder of his time in America's Show Me State.

After an exhaustive hunt, they came up empty.

"Maybe we didn't know what we were doing, but we couldn't find anything except things made in China or Mexico," said Gary Johnson, who, like his wife, is a business professor at Southeast Missouri State University.

Now, with Memories Made in Missouri and More, their new downtown Cape Girardeau gift shop that opens next month, they hope others won't have to face similar gift-buying struggles.

Even though it is only half stocked a few weeks before opening, the building at 110 Themis St. was already stuffed last week with items that are exclusively made in Missouri that run the gamut from food, glassware and candles to decorative utensils, jewelry, intricate doll beds and other craft items.

All made right here.

In some cases, the names give the products away. There's Ozark Country Fixin's Cajun jumbalaya from Ozark, Mo., and Mighty MO Munchies snacks from Oregon, Mo. But other items you'd have to investigate a bit before you'd know.

In one corner, there's yard art made by a craftsman in a spot in the road near Cuba, Mo. In another, there's doll beds made by a lady in Washington, Mo. and gourd art from Warsaw, Mo.

Other products to be sold are hand lotions made in the Ozarks, Fitz's root beer from St. Louis, ice cream made in Jefferson City and cheese spread from Chesterfield.

In fact, they hope to have 200 Missouri-made items before it's all said and done.

"We just thought people are looking for ways to support other small-business people," Gary Johnson said. "And, after all, if we continue to allow other nations to make our consumer products, there's going to be a day of reckoning."

Many weekends on the road

The Johnsons have found these items after an intensive search of the state's bigger cities and its out-of-the-way places. They've traveled to all corners of the state, stopping to buy items from roadside vendors and at senior citizens homes.

They've also done a lot of Internet research.

"It's not easy to identify these products, but they're out there," Johnson said. "We've spent a lot of weekends on the road, and we think we've come up with some unique items."

The way the business can support Missouri producers is that when the shop runs out of a product, it will have to buy more from those producers, Mary Johnson said.

"We want to help as many people as we can," she said.

That helpful sentiment also extends to their business students at the university. They plan to use their fledgling business as an example for their students to learn what it takes to run a small business.

Accounting students, for example, can learn how to set up accounting records, she said.

"This would be like a case study," she said. "They'll have the chance to see what a real business looks like from the inception. Any time an issue comes up, there's an opportunity for them to learn something."

Gary Johnson said it will also be a place for university officials and local mayors to come to give visiting guests a piece of Missouri to take with them.

"This can be a place for them to come and give visiting dignitaries and people like that something that was produced right here in Missouri," he said.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137